I posted this question over on AVS, but I thought I would try here as well. I have a 18'-6" x 30' dedicated home theater in the works, and I'm starting to look at speakers. Can you guys recommend an SEOS kit that would work for this room? I'm planning to have multiple subs, and I will need the LCRs as well as 6 surrounds (side array and two rear surrounds). I can swing $200-$500 ea on the LCR, but would like to stay on the lower end of that for the surrounds. The Fusion-15 Sentinel was recommended for all 9 speakers as well as some other options for the surrounds. I also wondered if something like Fusion-10 max would provide enough output for the surrounds. Are there cheaper options that would work? I don't want to cut corners, but I also don't want to spend money on something that will not make a difference. I appreciate any thoughts and input! Thanks in advance!
You'll probably get a lot more responses over on AVS. You had a lot of people recommend the Fusion 15 and I'd agree. It's a good one for your application. I'm not sure I agree with them about surrounds though. I like smaller more point source surrounds. Maybe the Alpha 8 or something. Depends on your output needs.
Yeah no need to go with the Sentinel's for surrounds unless you are the type of person that wants to make sure they get all identical speakers and like overkill which I don't think you are. I think you will find any of the smaller options are quite capable of keeping up with the larger mains and they all sound similar enough to use as surrounds without noticing the difference.
For single side surrounds, I'd say the wider the dispersion the better to get even coverage over the listening area. But for an array, narrow dispersion would be in order to minimize the interaction between them. Depending on a number of things, SEOS may or may not be the best choice, but I couldn't say. Have you looked into how you will calibrate these arrays? If you have, then you probably have seen that the equipment is pretty sophisticated and setting it up can be a challenge. If you are going to hire someone to calibrate it, I would seek that person's opinion about what loudspeakers or loudspeaker characteristics to look for.
If I can't tell the difference, I'm all for buying cheap! Yep, I'll buy the 10 lb bag of generic Lucky Charms in a minute I was a little surprised to see the recommendations to go with the Sentinels for surrounds. It's certainly a departure from what I'm accustomed to seeing spec'd. My main man HopefulFred! You are the reason I'm hear, BTW. I'm J_P_A on AVS. I saw you picked up the "Cheap Thrill" kit and I got the bug again ;D I wondered about the dispersion pattern as well, but Dennis spec's P6s for surrounds in his theaters (I think anyway) and those are constant directivity, 90 degree speakers. All I can guess is the narrow pattern helps isolate each speaker to each row. Right now I don't have a definite plan for processing, but I doubt it will involve any QSC gear. I may just go with a 9.1 setup initially and use the front columns as wides. But for now I'm planning for the array, and I'll deal with getting it calibrated when I get there. Nothing like kicking the can down the road!
We got to get our thrills somewhere - why not here?! Glad to see you here. I get lost in all the definitions for directivity patterns - just not experienced really - so I can't critique any of the designs for myself to establish their worthiness to any particular application. It seems to me that generally LCR (SEOS) is designed for a fairly narrow pattern, so as not just to match directivity throughout the band, but also to minimize room issues. That may not be what you want in arrays of surrounds, but I think it probably is.
I would go Fusion 15 for LCRs and Alpha 8 for surrounds (like tux suggested). The woofers on these 2 kits are from the same company (B&C) and more importantly the crossover design is by the same person (Matt, aka mtg90) and I have heard nothing but great reviews from his designs.